Noni Sampson, a 34-year-old mother of three, is not one for doing things in halves. So when she was considering sending her children to a Catholic school and was told by the parish priest that either she or her husband would first have to become Catholics in order to have their children baptised, there were two possible outcomes, reports Southern Cross.

As she left for the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) session, she told her husband Scott that she would either hate it or he would end up with a Catholic wife. “I wasn’t going to go through with it just to get my kids baptised,” she said.

Having had no formal religious upbringing other than the occasional Sunday school attendance when staying with her grandmother and schooling at a protestant school in Geelong, she was sceptical to say the least.

“I had all these preconceived ideas on religion and had explored all kinds of alternatives. I had an idea of Christianity as old-fashioned, you know, all the stereotypes. But very quickly after attending the RCIA class I felt like I had come home – it just clicked with me.”

The small group run by the Lefevre parish proved to be “open to questioning” and Noni found she really enjoyed unravelling the Gospel. “I loved the way it was broken open so you could encounter the Scriptures in a really open way. The more I learnt, the more it really spoke to me,” she said.

Noni, Scott and their three children - Ashleigh, 13, Piper, 10, and Pacey, 9, - moved to Adelaide from Geelong four years ago after Scott’s boss relocated his roof tiling company here. Noni had already begun her journey to the Church when Scott had a major seizure and was diagnosed with epilepsy which meant he could no longer be a roof tiler and instead enrolled to study accountancy.

FULL STORY Total conversion (Southern Cross)